Baruch 2: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

This chapter continues the prayer of confession sent from the exiles in Babylon. The speakers say that the Lord has carried out the warnings written in the law of Moses, bringing disaster on Jerusalem and scattering the people, and they admit that they sinned and did not listen. They then ask the Lord to turn his anger away, to hear them, and to give them favor with those who took them away, saying they pray on the basis of God's mercy and not on the righteousness of their ancestors. The prayer closes by quoting words spoken through the prophets about serving the king of Babylon, and words spoken through Moses about scattering, remembering, returning, and a covenant that lasts forever.

Claim by Claim

1. 2:1
   • The Lord has carried out the word he spoke against us
   • The Lord spoke that word against our judges who judged Israel
   • The Lord spoke that word against our kings
   • The Lord spoke that word against our princes
   • The Lord spoke that word against the men of Israel and Judah
2. 2:2
   • The word was to bring great plagues upon us
   • Such plagues never happened under the whole heaven
   • What happened in Jerusalem was according to what is written in the law of Moses
3. 2:3
   • A man should eat the flesh of his own son
   • A man should eat the flesh of his own daughter
4. 2:4
   • He delivered them into subjection to all the kingdoms round about us
   • They became a reproach and a desolation among all the peoples round about
   • The Lord has scattered them there
5. 2:5
   • We were cast down and not exalted
   • The reason is that we sinned against the Lord our God
   • We did not obey his voice
6. 2:6
   • Righteousness belongs to the Lord our God
   • Open shame belongs to us and to our fathers
   • That shame is so as at this day
7. 2:7
   • All these plagues have come upon us
   • The Lord pronounced these plagues against us
8. 2:8
   • We have not prayed before the Lord
   • We did not turn, each one, from the imaginations of his wicked heart
9. 2:9
   • The Lord watched over us for evil
   • The Lord brought it upon us
   • The Lord is righteous in all his works which he commanded us
10. 2:10
    • We have not hearkened to his voice
    • We did not walk in the commandments of the Lord
    • The Lord set those commandments before us
11. 2:11
    • The one addressed is the Lord God of Israel
    • The Lord brought his people out of the land of Egypt
    • He did so with a mighty hand
    • He did so with a high arm
    • He did so with signs
    • He did so with wonders
    • He did so with great power
    • He got himself a name, as appears this day
12. 2:12
    • The speakers address the Lord their God
    • We have sinned
    • We have done ungodly
    • We have dealt unrighteously in all your ordinances
13. 2:13
    • Let your wrath turn from us
    • We are but a few left among the heathen
    • You have scattered us there
14. 2:14
    • Hear our prayers, O Lord
    • Hear our petitions
    • Deliver us for your own sake
    • Give us favour in the sight of those who have led us away
15. 2:15
    • The purpose is that all the earth may know that you are the Lord our God
    • Israel and his posterity are called by your name
16. 2:16
    • Look down from your holy house, O Lord
    • Consider us
    • Bow down your ear, O Lord, to hear us
17. 2:17
    • Open your eyes and behold
    • The dead are in the grave
    • Their souls have been taken from their bodies
    • The dead will give the Lord neither praise nor righteousness
18. 2:18
    • The soul that is greatly vexed will give you praise and righteousness
    • That soul goes stooping and feeble
    • The eyes that fail will give you praise and righteousness
    • The hungry soul will give you praise and righteousness
    • The one addressed is the Lord
19. 2:19
    • We do not make our supplication before you for the righteousness of our fathers
    • We do not make our supplication before you for the righteousness of our kings
    • The one addressed is the Lord our God
20. 2:20
    • You have sent out your wrath and indignation upon us
    • You spoke this by your servants the prophets
21. 2:21
    • The Lord said to bow down your shoulders
    • The Lord said to serve the king of Babylon
    • The Lord said that then you shall remain in the land
    • The Lord gave that land to your fathers
22. 2:22
    • The condition is that you will not hear the voice of the Lord
    • The condition is that you will not serve the king of Babylon
23. 2:23
    • I will cause the voice of mirth to cease out of the cities of Judah and from outside Jerusalem
    • I will cause the voice of joy to cease
    • I will cause the voice of the bridegroom to cease
    • I will cause the voice of the bride to cease
    • The whole land shall be desolate of inhabitants
24. 2:24
    • We would not hearken to your voice
    • We would not serve the king of Babylon
    • You have therefore carried out the words you spoke by your servants the prophets
    • Those words were that the bones of our kings should be taken out of their place
    • Those words were that the bones of our fathers should be taken out of their place
25. 2:25
    • The bones are cast out to the heat of the day
    • The bones are cast out to the frost of the night
    • They died in great miseries
    • They died by famine
    • They died by sword
    • They died by pestilence
26. 2:26
    • You have laid waste the house which is called by your name
    • Its state is to be seen this day
    • The reason is the wickedness of the house of Israel and the house of Judah
27. 2:27
    • You have dealt with us according to all your goodness
    • You have dealt with us according to all your great mercy
    • The one addressed is the Lord our God
28. 2:28
    • You spoke by your servant Moses
    • You spoke on the day you commanded him to write the law before the children of Israel
29. 2:29
    • The condition is that you will not hear my voice
    • This very great multitude shall be turned into a small number among the nations
    • I will scatter them there
30. 2:30
    • I knew they would not hear me
    • They are a stiffnecked people
    • In the land of their captivity they shall remember themselves
31. 2:31
    • They shall know that I am the Lord their God
    • I will give them a heart
    • I will give them ears to hear
32. 2:32
    • They shall praise me in the land of their captivity
    • They shall think upon my name
33. 2:33
    • They shall return from their stiff neck
    • They shall return from their wicked deeds
    • They shall remember the way of their fathers
    • Their fathers sinned before the Lord
34. 2:34
    • I will bring them again into the land I promised with an oath to their fathers
    • Those fathers are Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
    • They shall be lords of that land
    • I will increase them
    • They shall not be diminished
35. 2:35
    • I will make an everlasting covenant with them
    • I will be their God
    • They shall be my people
    • I will no more drive my people Israel out of the land I have given them

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

2:1

"Judges" means the leaders described in the book of Judges, who governed the tribes of Israel in the period before there were kings. "Princes" in the King James does not mean sons of a king; it covers officials, military commanders and heads of leading families.

2:2

"Plagues" in the King James means blows or disasters of any kind, not disease in particular. "The law of Moses" is the first five books of the Bible, and the reference is to the lists of curses in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28, which spell out what was to follow if Israel broke its agreement with God.

2:3

This picks up the warning of Deuteronomy 28:53, that a siege could reduce people to eating their own children. Ancient armies took walled cities by starving them out, and 2 Kings 6:28-29 and Lamentations 4:10 report this happening in Israelite cities.

2:4

The scattering refers to the deportations carried out by Babylon, chiefly in 597 and 587 BC, when the population of Judah was marched off in stages, with others fleeing to Egypt and neighboring countries.

2:6

The Greek reads literally "shame of face," an idiom for disgrace that everyone can see, rather than private guilt. The King James "open shame" carries the same sense.

2:8

The Greek says literally that they have not begged "the face of the Lord," a standard idiom for pleading with someone in power for a favorable hearing.

2:9

"Watched over" here does not mean protected. The image, borrowed from Jeremiah 1:12 and 31:28, is of a guard keeping something in view until it is carried out, and what is being guarded is the disaster. "For evil" means for harm, not for wickedness.

2:11

"With a mighty hand, and high arm" is a stock phrase for force used openly, the way a raised arm can be seen from a distance; it belongs to the fixed language for the escape from Egypt. "Gotten thyself a name" means built a reputation that other nations know.

2:13

"Heathen" in the King James simply translates the ordinary word for the nations, meaning peoples other than Israel. In 1611 it carried no sneer.

2:14

"Them which have led us away" are the Babylonians who deported them. Asking that captors look on them with favor echoes Exodus 3:21, where the Israelites leaving Egypt are given favor in the eyes of the Egyptians.

2:15

To be "called by" someone's name is an ownership idiom. It marks a person, a city or a building as belonging to the one named, much as a name on a deed does.

2:16

"Thine holy house" usually means the temple in Jerusalem, but that temple is described as ruined in verse 26, so the phrase here is often read as God's dwelling in heaven. The Greek allows either.

2:17

Where the King James says "graves," the Greek says Hades, the underworld where all the dead were thought to go; in this usage it is the general realm of the dead, not a place of punishment. "Souls" translates a word meaning breath or life, so the line says the dead no longer breathe.

2:18

"Soul" in these verses means the whole living person, so "the hungry soul" is a person who is actually going hungry. Stooping and failing eyesight are physical signs of starvation and grief.

2:20

A prophet was a person who told others what God said.

2:21

The words quoted here and through verse 23 are a compressed version of things said in the book of Jeremiah (27:11-12, 7:34, 16:9, 25:10) rather than a quotation of any single passage. "Bow down your shoulders" pictures an ox putting its neck under the yoke, that is, accepting a master's rule instead of fighting it.

2:23

"The voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride" is a set phrase in Jeremiah for the ordinary sounds of weddings and celebration, so its silence means a country emptied of normal life. "Mirth" in the King James means merrymaking or festivity.

2:24

To have bones "taken out of their place" is to have a tomb broken open and the remains thrown out, the worst dishonor that could be done to the dead. Jeremiah 8:1-2 threatens exactly this against the kings and people of Jerusalem.

2:25

Exposure to sun and frost describes bones left lying unburied. "Pestilence" means epidemic disease. Famine, sword and pestilence together are a fixed trio in Jeremiah for the three ways a besieged population dies.

2:26

"The house which is called by thy name" is the temple in Jerusalem, burned by the Babylonians in 587 BC.

2:28

What follows in verses 29 to 35 is not a quotation of any one passage of Moses but a summary of the pattern set out in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 4, 28 and 30, where both exile and a later return are described.

2:30

"Stiffnecked" is a farming image: an animal that stiffens its neck against the yoke or the reins and refuses to be steered. The King James "remember themselves" means come to their senses.

2:31

"Heart" in this language means the mind and the will, the place where a person thinks and decides, rather than the seat of feelings. Giving a heart and ears to hear echoes Deuteronomy 29:4 and Jeremiah 24:7.

2:34

Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are the three ancestors to whom, in Genesis, God promised the land under oath. Naming all three is a way of saying the promise goes back to the beginning of the people.

2:35

A covenant is a binding agreement with obligations on both sides, of the kind a king made with a subject people. "I will be their God, and they shall be my people" is the standard formula for that agreement between God and Israel, used in the same words at Jeremiah 31:33 and elsewhere.